The cottage on the sea
by FemmeBrulee
Summary: She is there, in a cottage on an island on a great grey sea. Moving around in her white dress like she hadn't a care in the world.


A/N: Hi everyone! This little story has been swimming around in my head for ages - extra points for those who can guess which book it's loosely based on :) Hope you all enjoy and as usual, review if you did! Shoutout to NotADrugAddict for beta-reading!

* * *

On the first day, a storm raged around the old house.

Rain crashed against the feeble roof and winds shook the windows in their panes. Yet, somehow, the house stood, even when the world around it was riven in a million light-coloured pieces.

The front door rattled before it was thrown open and in walked a man huddled and shaking under a drenched cloak. He cast a quick glance around the parlour, its dust-covered furniture and rainwater dripping from holes in the roof and pooling on the floor. With a wave of his wand, the dust vanished, the roof repaired itself and the floor was dry. Outside, the gale howled and hammered against the windows, but inside, it became calm.

The man removed his cloak and shook the rain from his blond hair. He sat on the sofa in front of the fireplace and conjured up a bright, dancing flame. He stared into it for what could have been hours, saying nothing.

* * *

On the second day, the memories came.

The man awoke from where he had fallen asleep on the sofa. The storm raged ceaselessly on outside but the parlour was bathed in a warm, golden glow. He stretched out on the sofa and stared at the ceiling, thinking of the time when, as a young boy, he used to imagine dragons and merpeople and centaurs wheeling and cavorting across the wooden rafters.

He followed the memory to the sound of his mother's voice, calling him to practice a few simple spells around the house. He had learned _Alohomora _in this house, trying to open her jewellery box, and _Wingardium Leviosa _on the sofa cushions. His favourite had been _Lumos_, whispered into a darkening bedroom at sundown.

He moved numbly through the house, like a ghost. The door to his bedroom creaked as he opened it, and his heart fluttered with how quickly the memories came. The search-and-rescue expeditions he would play with his toys to locate the one he had cleverly hidden underneath a loose floorboard. The desk where he'd written incredible stories about powerful wizards and their secrets. The window from which he'd watch the great grey sea beyond the cliff.

* * *

On the third day, the storm crashed through a window.

The man dreamed of howling winds and a cold that crept into his bones. He awoke with a start, the sound of the storm filling his ears. He rushed to the window, fumbling about his pockets for his wand as the icy rain sprayed through the broken glass. He shouted for his wand and it flew into his hand a few moments later, but not before his clothes were soaked in cold water.

"_Reparo… reparo… _fucking_ REPARO!_" The spell crackled up his arm but died on the tip of his wand, no matter how loud he commanded it.

"FUCK," he cried, flinging his wand away, a temper rising inside him as fierce as the raging storm outside.

He strode to the door at the back of the house, throwing it open as he stepped out into the pouring rain. The freezing winds hit him instantly, whipping his cloak about his body even as he tried desperately to wrap it around himself.

He couldn't see. Everything was obscured by sheets of rain, a great grey veil like the sky itself was hanging open.

He charged blindly forward, teeth chattering behind tight lips. He walked knowing the ground would soon fall away, the sheer drop of the cliff looming closer in his mind's eye. He walked, suspended inside that mad, indescribable thought.

He reached the edge of the cliff and his heart pounded hard with the force of a grief it could no longer contain.

He screamed and screamed, because she was gone.

* * *

"Draco, Draco...mate, bloody hell...I knew I should have come here sooner."

His head was pounding and his body felt hot and cold all at once. He peeled his eyes open, squinting at a figure hunched over him, silhouetted against a pale sun.

"No...no...fuck off, Nott…"

"Alright, get up mate. Let's get you inside, yeah?"

"F-fuck off, I said…" He feebly tried elbowing his friend aside, but he was too weak and soon found his arm draped across Nott's back and his feet dragging limply along the ground.

"Have you eaten anything? You look like hell…"

Draco simply grunted as he was helped into the parlour, pinching his eyes shut as pain lanced through his head.

"Here, sit here. Now stay still." Draco felt a welcome blast of hot air dry his damp clothes as he slumped onto the sofa.

"Okay, now drink this. Come on." Nott shoved a glass of water into Draco's hand. "Don't make me do it for you."

Draco groaned, sitting up slightly to drink and feeling considerably more alive as he did.

He waited for Nott to say something, anything. Chide him or - the thought itself made him cringe slightly - give him _advice. _But Nott simply stared at him, with a look that was infuriatingly close to concern.

"Look, I don't care what you have to say, Nott, and I'm perfectly capable of—"

"There's other people in this world who care for you, you know. Your mother and father, your friends—"

"I don't want to hear it—"

"— and then you up and leave after the funeral, and everyone's losing their minds wondering where you might be, thinking the worst has happened. Good thing I remembered you telling me about this house, how your mother used to take you here during the summer, but then I come here and find you on the edge of a bloody _cliff_—"

"I needed to get away."

"And I get that, mate. I do. But to just disappear without a word..."

Draco brought his palms up to his face and sighed. "I felt like I was going to explode. Like there was all this _energy_ inside me and I just had outrun it, had to run somewhere far. And then I thought of this house."

"Right, good, sure… then what the fuck were you doing out there?"

Draco was silent, remembering the desperation that throbbed in his heart as he thought about ending it all. Funny how that felt like a distant memory now. Funny how his grief came and went in waves.

"I can't imagine living without her," he said finally. "It's not fair." He had told her not to take the job. But that was just who Hermione was. Always wanting to do the right thing.

"I know, mate. It fucking sucks. But what you thought the answer was, it's not it. It's not what she would have wanted."

Nott was right. He could almost see her now, hands on her hips, a disapproving look in her beautiful brown eyes.

"Right, I'm going to get you some food and fever-reducing potions. Just don't do anything stupid while I'm gone, alright?"

Draco snorted and slumped back onto the sofa, and sleep came within moments.

* * *

"_You always get that look on your face when you read," she said wistfully, lowering her book onto her chest. "Why is that?"_

"_What look? I don't get a look on my face when I read."_

"_You do. You frown and your lips curl downward and your nose crinkles up. Why do you do that?"_

_He realised, when he had to consciously relax his face, that she was right._

"_I dunno. Guess it's a face I pull whenever I'm deep in thought."_

"_But it's almost as if you're unhappy, or you've thought of a bad memory."_

"_Why does it even matter?"_

_She didn't answer but merely looked at him. He groaned, rubbing a hand over his face. "I guess… I think it's because my father used to make that face whenever he read. And I wanted to be like him, so I copied him. I copied almost everything the man did."_

"_So I was half-right," she grinned._

"_Sure, whatever," he smirked and they spent the rest of the evening reading in silence, her head against his chest and him learning to let go of one more thing from his past._

* * *

He woke up to the smell of her - a hint of lavender and old books. Then, like a weight crashing into his chest, he remembered she was gone.

"Draco, mate, I brought you some—"

"Get out."

"— thought you might— what?"

"Get out. Get out of my house."

"Hey, you alright? I was just trying to—"

The anger exploded in his chest. "Alright? Do I fucking look _alright_ to you, Nott? Hermione is gone, I will never get to see her again, how could I possibly be alright?"

Nott looked at him helplessly. "I— I just want to help—"

"I don't need it. Really. I don't. What I need is to be alone. So would you kindly fucking leave please?"

"Okay, I'll go," Nott said hurriedly, heading for the door. He glanced briefly at Draco before adding, "owl me if… if there's anything you need."

Draco punched the sofa as the front door closed behind Nott. He punched it again, and again, because he didn't know what else to do. He grabbed the glass of water he drank from and flung it with all his strength at the door, where it shattered. He went into the kitchen, pulling mugs and plates from the cupboards and smashing them on the floor. He felt like a child, like he was being swallowed up by something too big for him to comprehend.

He stepped out of the house and walked again to the edge of the cliff. The sea was always so calm, and so vast he used to spend hours staring at it and imagining what great creatures lived below.

He sat on a rock and watched the sea like he used to, except now he could only think of her.

* * *

_She was standing in the kitchen, a hand on her hip as she frowned down at the counter. Careful not to make a sound, he slipped behind her and snaked his arms around her waist._

_"For heaven's sake, Draco! I told you not to do that!" She jumped and lightly smacked him on the arm. "What if I had been boiling soup or brandishing a meat cleaver?"_

"_Truth be told, I'd love to watch you brandish a meat cleaver," he grinned, nuzzling his nose into her neck. "But it looks like you're just confused by some eggs and flour so I assumed it was safe."_

"_It's this strawberry millefeuille recipe," she sighed. "I think I added too much sugar into the batter. Do you want to taste and tell me what you think?"_

"_When you say 'too much…'"_

"_Twice the recommended amount. I misread the instructions." She grinned as she dipped her finger into the yellow batter. "Come on, have a taste."_

"_Fuck no, Granger," he said, slinking away. "You know how much I despise anything with too much sugar in it."_

"_Huh, I don't ever remember you saying that…" she smirked, wagging a batter-coated finger at him._

"_I might have mentioned it once or twice. You really should listen more," he said, grabbing her hand and pulling her up against him. He kissed her tenderly on the neck, his hands sliding up her waist, to her ribs. She moaned softly, the sound sending shivers up his legs. Her hand came up to stroke his head as she found his lips with her own. There was probably batter in his hair, but neither of them were thinking of that anymore._

* * *

He didn't notice it until a week had passed. The island in the middle of the sea. It was a tiny island, not more than fifty paces wide.

There was a cottage on the island. It was white, with a red-tiled roof, windows and a front door. He had to squint to make sure he wasn't dreaming it up, because he'd never once noticed it.

But there it was. A cottage on an island in the sea. And when he peered closer, he saw someone moving inside of it.

"No fucking way…" he whispered, trying hard to make out who it was. And then he saw the bushy brown hair, the white summer dress she always loved to wear.

"Hermione? No, it can't be… Hermione?"

The closer he looked, the clearer she became. Every time she passed by a window, he craned to make sure she was solid, and not a ghost.

He looked around, searching for something, anything to tell him he was dreaming or caught in some macabre illusion. But nothing seemed out of place.

"Hermione!" he began to shout. "HERMIONE! It's me! It's me, Draco! I'm over here!" He waved his arms like a madman, his neck straining as he yelled, but she was simply too far away.

"How the fuck do I…" There was no way to get to her. The closest shoreline was miles away and it would take him ages, and what if she was gone by the time he got there? He thought of Apparating, but worried he'd end up in the middle of the sea. He could swim, of course, but where would he go? The cliff was too high, and too sheer…

He looked down the cliff face. It was easily over fifty metres high. No, that's not what she'd want him to do. Nott was right about that.

"The fuck do I do…" he sank down on the rock, fingers raking through his hair. "What are you doing there, Hermione? What are you trying to tell me?"

He thought about death, and how little anyone knew about it, Muggles and magical people alike. There was even an entire division in the Department of Mysteries dedicated to unlocking its secrets. He thought of ghosts and the Resurrection Stone, but this was something entirely different.

He decided to write to Nott. He had to tell someone, make sure someone else could see her too. He sprang toward the house, violently yanking open drawers until he found a few yellowed squares of parchment.

_Nott,_

_Need you to come back to the house. Saw something. Have to make sure it's real._

_Draco_

He found a couple of barn owls roosting in the rafters. He whistled one over and tied the note to its leg.

As the owl took flight, Draco raced to the cliff edge again. The island and the cottage were still there. And so was she, moving around in her white dress like she hadn't a care in the world.

* * *

Nott showed up the next morning with a slow knock on the door. He looked slightly alarmed when Draco threw it open.

"_Merlin_, mate, haven't you been sleeping? You look like—"

"No time, come with me." Without waiting for a response, Draco grabbed Nott by the elbow and sped toward the cliff edge.

"You said you saw something?" Nott asked, his voice unsteady from the rough movement. "What did—"

"It...it was _her_, Nott. It was Hermione. I think— I'm sure it was her."

Nott seemed to relax slightly in his grip.

It was enough to make Draco stop in his tracks, his hand still gripping tightly onto Nott's elbow. "You think I'm crazy, don't you?"

"Well…" Nott didn't seem to be able to meet his eyes. "I was worried you'd say it was her."

"I'm not crazy, alright? I _saw_ her. She was real." He jabbed his finger toward the sea. "Go and see for yourself."

"Fine, okay." Nott sighed, yanking his arm from Draco's grip and walked to the cliff edge. "What am I supposed to be looking for?"

"You'll see it."

"I don't see anything," Nott said after a few seconds.

"Sh—she's there...in a cottage. There's a cottage there."

"There isn't, mate."

"Then you're not bloody looking hard enough!" Draco cried, storming to the cliff edge, his gaze leaping immediately to the exact place where the island had been.

But there was nothing there. Nothing at all except the great grey sea.

"No… no… it was just there. It was there yesterday. _She _was there. In a cottage. She was wearing a white dress!"

Nott merely looked at him, a frown creasing his pale forehead.

"Don't you fucking look at me like that! I know what I saw!"

"Well it's not there now, is it? What do you expect me to believe?"

"I— It was— fuck!" Draco punched the air in frustration. "What the fuck's wrong with me?"

Nott shifted on his feet, eyeing Draco carefully. "Didn't you use to tell me, about all those times as a boy when you used to... imagine things all around this house? Maybe—"

"That was different! I was a boy and I was bored because there was nothing else to do in this fucking house! But this… this wasn't just my imagination!"

"Look, mate," sighed Nott. "Maybe you've been here too long. Go and stay with your parents for a few days, get a change of scenery. This house is doing you in."

Draco shook his head. "I can't. She's there, Nott. I know she is. I have to figure this out. Give me a few more days."

There was a pause before Nott spoke. "Do you want me to stay here?"

"No," Draco said, feeling a twinge of guilt in his chest. "You've done enough."

"Three days, alright? If I don't hear anything from you in three days, I'm coming back here."

"Three days."

* * *

Three days passed and there was no word from Draco. On the first two days Nott simply caught himself glancing out the window every few hours, hoping a familiar barn owl would come swooping into his apartment. But he spent nearly the whole of the third day by the window, scanning the skies for the first sign that Draco hadn't gone and done something utterly stupid.

On the morning of the fourth day, Nott Apparated straight into the parlour of the house.

"Draco! Draco, are you here?" he called out, even as his heart sank at the sight of a half-eaten plate of spaghetti bolognaise on the table.

"Please tell me you didn't do it, Draco," he muttered as he flung open the back door of the house and hurried toward the cliff edge. He steeled himself before peering down the face of the cliff, hoping beyond hope that he wouldn't spot anything in the waves crashing against the rocks below.

There was nothing down there either, Nott realised, the tightness in his chest relaxing slightly. But then where had the bastard gone?

"Draco! Where the fuck are you, mate?" Nott shouted, running back toward the house. He checked all of its rooms and cast revealing spells everywhere in case there were hidden rooms. But still nothing.

"Where the fuck is he?" Nott stood thinking in the middle of the parlour, his fingers bunching up in his hair. He decided to wait, in case Draco had merely gone out for a long walk. But as the sun set that evening, sinking beyond the grey sea, Nott feared Draco was gone.

* * *

For two weeks following Draco's mysterious disappearance, Nott lied to everyone he knew. Because what could he say? That their son, their friend had disappeared off the face of the earth? That he'd been having visions, seeing things that weren't really there?

So he lied. He told them that Draco just needed some time to pull himself back together. And that he'd come back when he was ready.

But the truth sat uncomfortably in his stomach as he spent each day searching in a different place. The bar they used to frequent with their old Slytherin buddies. The clearing in the forest where they used to meet up for Quidditch matches. Even Hogwarts. But there was simply no sign of the man.

It wasn't until Nott had exhausted all his options for finding Draco and was finally contemplating how he would break the news to everyone else, that a barn owl flew straight through his living room window.

Nott scrambled toward it. With shaking hands he untied the parchment from the owl's leg and began to read.

_Nott,_

_I found her. I found Hermione. I don't know how exactly, but I went to her. To the cottage on the sea. I held her, I spoke to her, and she to me. She told me that it was okay, that she wasn't suffering, or in pain. She said it didn't hurt when...when it happened._

_She told me she loves me and that seeing me unhappy makes it hard for her to move on. She told me never to forget how far I've come._

_She said I should go back to my family, my friends, my new life. She told me to let her go._

_So I did, I finally did. And I'm back now. I don't see the cottage anymore, or her, but that's okay, because I know she's happy. Because I got to see her one last time, and understand._

_Draco_

_PS: I think it's high time we all had a pint at the old bar. Tomorrow, same time?_

Nott read the note again and again, his mind as foggy on the fifth re-read as on the first. But the hand was unmistakably Draco's, thin and cursive. What did he mean when he said he 'went to her?' How could he have? Had his visions been real all along? But that was absurd, Nott thought, shaking the idea from his head.

In response, he simply wrote:

_Draco,_

_Good to have you back. Better see you tomorrow or I'm calling an entire search party this time._

_Nott_

He watched the barn own sail off into the sky.

Nobody told Theodore Nott that if he had gone back to the old house sometime in those two weeks and looked out to sea, he _would_ have seen a cottage. And that if he had just looked hard enough, he _would _have seen a woman there, in the arms of the man who loved her.

* * *

_He must have been standing there for several minutes, mentally rehearsing what he would say to her. It was all mad, he knew it, and she probably did as well. But yet here he was, dressed in his best dark green suit, heart pounding, and about to take Hermione Granger out to dinner for the first time._

_He took a deep breath, and knocked._

_There was the sound of something hard clattering to the floor and rushed, muffled movements. Followed by a hiss that sounded distinctly cat-like._

"_Just a second!" her voice called out from the other side, breathy and shaking slightly._

_He thought of putting his hands in his pockets, but wondered if that would look too casual. He hated having his arms hang uselessly by his sides, but what he hated even more was being rendered utterly incapable of functioning like a normal human being at the very thought of a woman._

_He was leaning against the doorframe when the door opened. And it was like the air had been knocked out of his chest._

_She was wearing a black dress that shimmered gently as she stepped out into the light. Her tanned, honey-brown arms crossed low over her waist, one hand wrapped around her wrist. She was taller, raised a few inches on a pair of black ribbon heels. She looked at him, her brown eyes sparkling and a rosy blush already staining her cheeks, and his stomach flipped._

"_You, uh...you look nice" he simply breathed, his words stalling in his throat in a way they had never done before._

"_Thanks. So do you," she said, her gaze lingering briefly on his suit before rising again to meet his._

_He was gripped then, maybe by the sudden frustration at not having the words to properly describe her, or maybe by something else entirely, and he found himself leaning forward and slowly, brushing his lips against her cheek. He heard her breath hitch and felt her turn her face slightly toward his._

_In that single, infinite moment, he wanted so much to curl an arm around her waist, push her against the wall, kiss her till she shook, but he pulled back._

_He took her hand. "Shall we go?"_

_She swallowed and nodded, her lips pressed together in a tight smile._

_As he turned to go, Draco Malfoy felt like something locked away deep down in his heart had just clicked open._

***End***


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